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Python and a few of it's libraries are certainly the closest to this I can think of on commodity computers. (To wit, I think you can just import turtle to get a logo.)

Now, imagine teaching an eight year old to update their home computer so that this works. And realize that that was common for many home computers back in the day.



It's simpler than anything beyond using the built-in BASIC interpreter was. Which also wasn't very good. And was arguably a fairly poor platform to learn programming on--although myself and many others did. (Though in my case on a teletype hooked up to a mini rather than a local computer.)


The built in basic interpreter, though, could do this. My kids couldn't get python installed last I asked them to try, is the point.

Now, web based setups are surely advanced in capabilities for them. But, only if you know what garden to enter. I'm a fan of scratch. The kids have gotten hilariously lost when the browser is accidentally closed.

Granted, I got lost some on the computers in the header school lab. Power cycling worked rather well to get me back to interpreter.




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